


7 Nights (and what comes after)

by Kalum16



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Angst, Forgiveness, Gen, Guilt, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27327916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalum16/pseuds/Kalum16
Summary: Breezepelt is being visited by a familiar face in his dreams. He tries to run, but he always comes back. Every night, he discovers more about why she's there.
Kudos: 23





	7 Nights (and what comes after)

The first night, Breezepelt knew he was asleep, so he passed her off as a dream. He knew he was asleep because he hadn’t remembered walking into the moors at night. Certainly not far enough that he was this close to the Thunderclan border. Not close enough that their stench made him retch.  
Despite his perception that he was asleep, he still felt how cold the night was. Underneath a gleaming moon, there was no air rustling his fur, but deep in his bones, it was freezing. Freezing enough to sting.  
He turned and found her on the border. Emerald eyes burning into him. She looked as young as the last time he’d seen her, but there was something about her, something pale and wispy, that made her appear like something out of an ancient legend. When moonlight struck her pelt, tiny spirals of light flickered from each strand of fur, sprinkling the air with a glittering obscurity.  
She never spoke. She just stared. Patient. Daring.  
But she was just a dream. So Breezepelt glared back and turned away. He wouldn’t be threatened by fantasy. He left her waiting, so far until she was just two green orbs winking in the ebony mist. He didn’t feel his pulse rising, and his face contorting into a scowl. He just left her.  
She knew he would come back.  
...  
The second night, she was still there. Still not speaking, still just sat there. Her tail lay flat in the freezing grass, but Breezepelt could have sworn it was beckoning him to come closer.  
Breezepelt growled, teeth chattering and breath steaming. His fur now felt like it was buried in ice. He still didn’t know how he’d got there; he could now remember falling asleep beside Heathertail and their daughters.  
How many cats dreamt the same thing twice?  
He felt an anger he’d promised himself to suppress burning in his jaws. He wanted to sprint over and swipe away the vision with his ever-digging claws. He glared still at the figure, baring his teeth in a warning snarl.  
She didn’t move a whisker. Her stare was now regrettably unnerving.  
It made Breezepelt’s head hurt and his throat go dry.  
He growled again with audible fury before he left her again.  
This time he ran.  
...  
When he saw her again the next night, Breezepelt knew these weren’t ordinary dreams.  
He gave in, standing a tree-length away from the dark figure.  
“What is this?” He demanded, sucking in air through his teeth. Even though his fur still laid unmoved, he could feel the wind striking his entire body.  
The green-eyed molly cocked her head to the side. Unlike the last time he had seen her, there was no blood gushing from her throat. “From how you reacted before, I assumed you’d decided it was a dream.” Her voice was smooth, but still carried the cockiness he remembered from their apprentice days.  
It still made his claws unsheathe.  
“It is a dream!” Breezepelt hissed. “But why are they of you? Why would I ever dream of you? Are you the one causing this?!” He took a small step towards her, his yellow eyes blazing.  
She shrugged, “Maybe, maybe not.” There was a remarkable lack of anything in her tone. It was like they were nothing but strangers. “Why do you think I’m here?”  
The Windclan tom narrowed his eyes. “To terrorise me?”  
“That’s pretty presumptuous.” She seemed to pierce through him and into him simultaneously. “Why would I do that? Do you deserve to be terrorised?”  
The chill that raked across Breezpelt’s spine was not because of the wind.  
Breezepelt flashed his fangs at her viciously. “Are you trying to make me mad? Just because you’re a dream, it doesn’t mean I won’t tear you apart!” He arched his shoulder up as he got into a threatening stance, his fur spiked with violent intent.  
She blinked slowly at him. In the crisp rays of moonlight, Breezepelt could just about make out the placid line of her mouth. “If I’m a dream, it doesn’t matter what you do to me.” She mused in a thin voice, “So why don’t you come over here?”  
Breezepelt stiffened as the coldness began to enclose around him. His fur quivered as he could sense the night’s darkness crawling across him like a pitch-black tongue. He wondered if she could sense why he didn’t want to approach her.  
“E-Exactly! I don’t need to because you’re just a stupid dream! A whole bunch of nothing!” He spat at her, mustering a familiar hostility he had abandoned for moons. But now, it rested back on his shoulder like a snake bracing to strike.  
It was something she had seen him wear like a second coat of fur.  
Her stare responded, glaring mockingly at him. Fearlessly waiting.  
The tom’s expression twisted, he suddenly felt like he was being choked. It awoke something. He needed to get away.  
“I don’t have to waste my time with you!” Breezepelt snarled, turning on his haunches and raking the grass as he left her again. “Don’t come back here! If I see you again, I’ll make you pay!” He hoped he wouldn’t need to keep that promise.  
He didn’t see it, but he felt it. The molly moved. Her tail curling, amused.  
“It’s good to see you’re the same as always.”  
There was no venom in the way she said that, but it still made Breezepelt start running again. Now carrying an expression of pure horror.  
…  
He stormed up to her on the fourth night. Now she was within a tail’s distance and Breezepelt could see her clearly. Her black fur still sparkled under the stars, augmenting her presence in the stormy night.  
If it wasn’t for the moon, Breezepelt was sure that he wouldn’t be able to make out the moors anymore.  
But the increasing darkness wasn’t what was on Breezepelt’s mind.  
“I’m not like back then!” He declared. His heart pounded and there was a strange hissing sound in his ears. She smiled. It was a fake smile, but she smiled, dripping with scorn.  
“Could have fooled me.” In the flickering green of her eyes and the dry aura of her voice, there was life. Life beating from a force made up of stars and hope that Breezepelt had once refused to believe in. Life that was beyond death.  
“It was moons ago!” Breezepelt pressed, still clinging onto his nerves with an escalating irritation. “I’ve proved myself to my Clan since then! Your own brother has stuck up for me and told the clans he wants to forget what happened!”  
She twisted her head in a movement that flowed with the rolling of her eyes. “Yes, and my other brother wanted to let you die until our father convinced him otherwise.”  
Our. That made Breezepelt feel so much more sick than it should have.  
He was sure she knew that.  
Breezepelt cringed, the picture of Crowfeather begging for his life was so strange it could have been seen as unnatural. He also felt the sting of debt. It had been Jayfeather who had gifted Windclan the life saving medicine. It had been Jayfeather who had saved Breezepelt’s life.  
It had been Jayfeather that Breezepelt had almost killed. Wanted to kill.  
“Can you see it? What you did?”  
Breezepelt thrust his head up, rapidly breathing as he saw an air of smugness surround the celestial cat. Her fur began to slither in the breeze, stoic to the chill, but vindicated by his own self-slaughtering thoughts.  
A creeping horror embedded itself into Breezepelt’s spine. How could she tell what he was… No. Of course she knew his thoughts, she was part of them after all. A shade of his own making. The tom took a step forward to show he wasn’t going to cower.  
“I made up for that long ago! I was young and I made some terrible mistakes, that doesn’t mean-”  
She started to laugh.  
Her eyes still joined with his, a grin snapped across her muzzle, before blooming open as she laughed straight at him.  
He’d heard her laughter before, once, but never like this. Then it had been mischief and arrogance. Now it was crude and mocking.  
It rattled along the air, falling on Breezepelt like icicles. He could have sworn the horrible sound echoed over the hills but never travelled too far away. Her laughter was a storm, and Breezepelt was the eye.  
“A mistake?” She threw her head back, one emerald eye glinting like a dog’s tooth. Her laughter morphed into something crooked, like she was spitting out death berries. “Is that what you tell yourself?” She sneered; disgust ripe on her tongue.  
Breezepelt glared at her.  
“You always were terrible at lying.”  
“My clan has forgiven me.” Breezepelt said slowly.  
She whipped her head to the side. “Good for you. I suppose that means it never happened, right?”  
“Lionblaze said that he-”  
“Lionblaze would be dead if you’d had your way.” Now, the revulsion was stark and terrible on her face. Inside those burning green orbs, Breezepelt saw nothing but hatred.  
It wasn’t something unfamiliar to him. It was something he thought he had escaped.  
It still made his blood turn cold. Even if it was from her instead of his own clan.  
But was that entirely fair. It was the same look he’d given her corpse.  
“Oh, so you pick now of all times to think of that?” She scoffed. The starlight shimmering strands of her fur moved as if the stars were mocking him with the parody of disgusted laughter.  
Breezepelt stiffened. “W-What do you want?” He descended his voice into a growl as his stammer overwhelmed him with a humiliated indignation.  
“To see that look on your face.”  
Breezepelt turned his face away and fled once more. He was still panting for breath and his chest still ached from exhaustion and fear when Heathertail nudged him awake.  
…  
“What do you want me to say?”  
He kept the same distance as the previous night. Tonight, she was remarkably still. “Nothing that you want to hear.”  
His tail lashed and his yellow glare burned. “Just tell me!” He shouted, groaning as the echo throbbed around the darkness of the moors. He hissed a breath that immediately fogged in the air, so thick it may have blocked her image for a moment.  
“How about why?” She said disdainfully.  
“Why?”  
“Did I stutter?”  
Breezepelt’s snarl churned from the smoking anger in his stomach. That was what she wanted? She already knew why? Every cat in the forest knew what he had done! He’d had moons of distrusting glares and cautious whispers from his own clanmates to be reminded every wretched day of the mistakes he’d made.  
Was that her goal? To make him grovel. To make him squirm. She was mouse-brained if she thought he was still weak enough to do that. He’d had a lifetime of living out of his own shadow; what was a few minutes more?  
“Fine! I messed up! Is that what you want to hear?” He shouted, taking a step closer to those unblinking, judging eyes. “I was young and I felt that no one around me, not even my own parents, believed in me. Can you blame me for being happy for once that a group of cats believed I was strong? That I meant something!”  
She blinked, and Breezepelt continued before she could open her mouth again.  
“I trained in the Dark Forest to become strong, and they told me that I was. Obviously I was wrong to join them in the Great Battle but I didn’t think I had a choice! You, your siblings, Thunderclan, Windclan, my own father! After all that had happened between us, why would I ever believe any of you when you said that I was fighting for the wrong side? The Dark Forest said they trusted me, and Crowfeather-” Breezepelt grunted, trying to keep his claws sheathed. “Crowfeather was on your side instead of mine. Like he always was.” He hid the softness that suddenly overtook him with a low growl afterwards.  
He hated thinking of those times for many reasons. The rejection he saw in his father, the way that the forest had trusted a trio of half-clan cats over a cat like him who had pushed himself every day to be the Warrior they would respect, the way that he had lost everything in that battle and continued to suffer for it for moons.  
But most of all, he hated remembering how it was all for nothing.  
Inhaling deeply, he calmed his tone. “I was wrong, okay?” He looked up to her eyes, hoping his form radiated composure rather than submission. “I’ve admitted that. I’ve been forgiven for it. Those times were another moon, can’t I be allowed to move past them if they’re something I regret?” He asked her bitterly.  
He didn’t know what he expected from her. If he was honest he hoped she would be satisfied enough with his answer to leave him alone. He was growing sick of the chill and the darkness and spending his nights thinking about a cat he didn’t care to remember.  
Her head cocked, and she frowned. “That wasn’t what I meant.”  
Now, Breezepelt was furious. He’d told her about what he’d done, he’d been open with her, he’d admitted that it was wrong! “Then stop wasting my time and tell me what you want?” He screamed, the pounding in his head just made him angrier. He leapt forward until her emerald stare was glinting off his fangs. “Why what?”  
Her tongue traced over her teeth and she took a dismissive moment to clean her paw. “Why should anyone forgive you?”  
By Starclan, he hated that smug look in her eyes. He wet the inside of his drying mouth, it didn’t help much as the cold air somehow drained away any moistness, leaving him dry and bare. “I said I regretted what I did.”  
“So what?”  
“What do you mean, ‘so what’?” He demanded. “It’s not like I didn’t suffer to! I had to work for moons to regain my clan’s trust.”  
“I wonder why.”  
Breezepelt clenched his teeth. “No cat would even look at me! They wanted me dead!”  
“I am dead.” She said bluntly.  
“That’s not my fault!” Breezepelt yelled, his paw crashing down resentfully. She didn’t even blink. He also hated how much this cat looked like him. The same dark flat fur. The same strong legs. The same lean body. The same glare that could penetrate stone. They were a picture of the other and he hated that so much! He always had!  
Temporarily, his neck fur trembled.  
She felt it.  
“Okay then.” She mused, her head turning to the side. “So, you regret it, right?”  
“I just said that.”  
Her gaze changed – darkened. “So that means you regret what happened to me?”  
“What?!” Breezepelt drew back, actually offended. His paws felt heavier than normal. “I wasn’t the one who killed you! That was Hawkfrost!”  
Her eyes closed and a low groan left her. A groan of utter disgust. “Still the same mouse-brain.” Scorn seemed to spark around her. “I’m not asking if you killed me or not, I’m aware of who it was, I’m asking if you regret that it happened.”  
“But why should I regret something I didn’t do?” He had regrets. He regretted betraying his clan, he regretted disappointing his mother, he even regretted not listening to his mouse-brained father from time to time. But he wasn’t the one that opened her throat, he hadn’t stooped to that.  
A momentarily wry look painted her features, one fang loomed judgingly over her lip. “Fine. I’ll spell it out for you then.” She groused, “Are you glad it happened?”  
Breezepelt froze. A sudden pain came to his side.  
A motionless moment passed. She spoke again.  
“Or rather, are you still glad that it happened?”  
Like a rapid blast of nightmares, the great battle carved its way back into his mind. Breezepelt’s blood chilled as her words cleared like the sun over the river. He was there again. Soaked in blood, but grinning. His claws buried into Lionblaze’s chest, one paw raised to land the killing blow he had dreamt about for so long.  
Then, with an unrelenting clarity, he saw the horror twist on his half-brother’s face. Puzzled, he turned his head swiftly.  
And there she was again. Underneath the glistening paws of Tigerstar’s son. Limp, lifeless. The crimson seeping from her throat to cover the dark grass.  
Breezepelt felt it all again.  
The shock electrifying his muscles.  
The satisfaction and relief flowing through his blood.  
He was back in his dream once more. And there she was. Life and mystery and knowledge tracing around her like an ever-expanding celestial orbit.  
She was patiently waiting for his answer.  
“Of course I’m not.” Why did he sound so quiet?  
She hummed, knowing the truth. “What about Jayfeather?”  
The blind cat, scratched, beaten, bloody. Under his mercy.  
“Yes.” That was true. He did! “I regret it!”  
“Poppyfrost?”  
The pregnant cat whimpering and shivering by the moonpool, fearing for her life and the lives inside her as she watched a Warrior tear apart a medicine cat.  
“I already said it!” He yowled at her, the anger was growing high and distorted. Turning into something else that made the Windclan tom convulse and tremble. “I regret it all!” How many times did he have to say it until it was true?  
She looked up, examining the dark sky as if she could see a plethora of stars.  
“I suppose that’s what you’re sticking too.” She sighed, her mind already made up. “But honestly, what does it matter?”  
Breezepelt lunged forward, his nose was now a stroke from hers. He couldn’t stand this anymore! It wasn’t fair! He’d fought for his clan, day in and day out, to escape the kind of looks that she was torturing him with! “Why can’t you just get over it? I’m not the only cat that’s made some stupid choices in my life!” His mind sparked, “What about your ‘mother’? What about your real mother? They both made choices that ruined you as well as me! Why should they be forgiven over me? They did terrible things as well! Are they deserving of your ‘forgiveness’,” He spat the last word in a mocking imitation of her voice, “Over me? They paid for what they did as well as me! Why should I continue to suffer when cats like them are treated like they’re heroes now?”  
He finished, fury, justification and pleasure leaking out of his breath. She was the guilty one, not him. She’d been the one to reveal their little secret after all. That was a funny way of showing how much she ‘forgave’ them. She had no cause to treat him like some kind of rogue!  
He sneered, eagerly anticipating whatever retort she had planned.  
She looked at him as if he were pathetic. “Because the mistakes they made, they did for the right reasons.”  
Breezepelt’s sneer dropped. He became vaguely aware of the scent of carrion, faintly tainting the surrounding dark.  
She shrugged; a small hint of her own regret twinkled in the emerald space of her eyes. “I didn’t see it myself for a long time, but it doesn’t change that it’s true.” She met his eyes again, undeterred and strong. “They did everything out of love and care, and maybe it wasn’t always right, but they never wanted to hurt anyone.”  
With a translucent energy, she began to move. One foot forward. Breezepelt stepped back. “You on the other paw.” Her eyes dulled and now anger was beginning to flare.  
Breezepelt was suddenly aware of his own fear.  
“Everything you did, was to hurt, to cause pain, to ruin everyone you blamed and hated.” She left the Thunderclan border, entering Winclan territory. Breezepelt wasn’t about to bring this up. The more he backed away, the more she came forth.  
“You made your choices because the only thing you ever cared about was yourself. And innocent cats, cats who you had never even met but were still more than you could ever be, were hurt because of it.”  
She stopped. The deathly scent was growing in the air. Breezepelt’s entire body was stiff with terror he didn’t know he could bare. But for a split second, her look was almost pitying.  
“And maybe I understand you. Because I blamed other cats for my problems for a long time as well.” She said softly, “I did some terrible things to, things I didn’t think I could make up for.” She let this linger for a long moment, long enough that Breezepelt had the nerve to relax.  
She stripped that away with another piercing, star filled stare. “But I paid for it. Because I was wrong, and I fought to make up for it. Because my loyalty to my clan never left me.” Her head arched back, narrowing her stare at him. “Can you say the same?”  
Breezepelt was silent. Not because he wanted to be, but because he had to be.  
She dipped her gaze, hissing with enmity. “Well, maybe you can.” She looked up again, hard. Staring right at…  
No.  
She was staring at something behind him.  
Breezepelt’s pupils shrank, and the scent of death and rot grabbed his senses with a pulsing familiarity. His stomach turned cold and dark as he remembered it. Absolute, petrifying panic tore into him like the sting of claws and talons.  
As he turned, her voice, calm and casual, yet somehow condoling, rose up and disappeared.  
“If your loyalty still lies with them.”  
Breezepelt turned.  
The moors of Windclan, of home, were not there.  
A thick entangled mess of wood and shadows ripped up until they were severing the stars. A red mist dawned everywhere he looked, only penetrated by the army of dead trees and white, cold eyes that winked with dark invitation. The whispery voices lulled over him, begging or demanding him to come home.  
The tom turned to run, but the border, she, was gone. He was in the middle of the red mist, the dead, forgotten earth sinking around him. The eyes closed in and the voices descended on him like falcons.  
Breezepelt was still screaming when he woke up.  
…  
“I’m sorry!”  
“No, you’re not.”  
“I am! I swear!”  
“You’re scared, that’s all.”  
“Of course, I’m scared! You can’t tell me that I belong there! I’ve done everything I can, I’ve never betrayed Windclan again! You have to believe me! I know what I did was terrible, but I promise you that I’m sorry for what I did!”  
“They all say the same thing when they see that.”  
“W-What are you talking about?”  
“Whenever a cat like you learns that’s what’s on its way. They always start mewling about how sorry they are. But Starclan have a way of knowing if it’s the truth or not.”  
“It is the truth! I’ll say it a thousand times if I have to!”  
“You mouse-brain. It doesn’t matter what you say! You can say anything, but it’s what you do that’s going to matter!”  
“What else can I do?! I’ll live by Windclan until the day I die, I’ll regret what I did every day, I’ll do whatever I can to make it up to the cats I hurt! I’ll do anything to prove it to you!”  
“It’s not me you need to prove it to.”  
“To prove it to Starclan then! I’m sorry! I swear on my life, I am so so sorry for what I did and I know that it doesn’t change anything about who I hurt or what I tried to do! But please! I’ll do anything you say I need to, just tell me what I need to do!"  
“…”  
“…please…”  
“I think what you did was evil.”  
“…”  
“You regret it?”  
“I do!”  
“Then make up for it for the rest of your life.”  
She turned away from him and disappeared back into the clouds of stars and light.  
…  
On the seventh night she was not there.  
Breezepelt called, screamed, begged for Hollyleaf to return. He did it until he was awake again, his tears still wet on his fur.  
He never dreamt of the border again. He was left on his own choices.


End file.
